Filter Bubble And Predictive Analytics

After reading the article for today, I feel like I have a better understanding of how I’m targeted for ads and videos. Looking at my data from Google, I can see that I spend most of my time on YouTube. That’s no real surprise though. Being a student means you don’t have time for much, and besides I’m just addicted to YouTube. It also said, I have been involved in over 600 conversations in my e-mail. That kind of shocks me because I know that I talk to people through e-mail, but I had no idea that I talk that much. The other Application that I have a lot of data from is Google Docs. I doesn’t really surprise me either because I do a lot of of my School preparation through Google Docs.

I guess what you would know about me from these things is that, I’m a students, YouTube junkie, and I sent a lot of e-mails. More in depth though, my YouTube history shows that I love the Fine brothers and other YouTuber content. So, I get a lot of recommendations and notifications about their new videos and videos from people that they like. I also listen to a lot of music through YouTube, which I get recommendations for. It is usually more music by the same artist or other artists like who I am listening to.

Most of my stuff is connected to my school e-mail and I get a lot of e-mails pertaining to school and things that would be relevant to a student. I get e-mails all the time for apartments, coupons for cloths, and insurance. I also get notifications for searching people I “know” based off who I have sent e-mails to.

I can see where my content is being sent through the “filter bubble”, especially through YouTube. I only get recommendations for things that are related to what I like. I am the kind of person, however, that likes to branch out and try new things. This kind of filtration frustrates me because I want to be the judge of what I like or do not like. I do not want some algorithm telling me what I like. It makes me wonder how much I am actually missing out on because my content is being filtered. I do not want companies like YouTube deciding what I want to listen to or watch. Even if I click on something by mistake, my home page is flooded with content related to that for days afterward. Stop the madness!